Wednesday, May 09, 2007

• Internet Island Topic Post #25: Toys and Games

  TOYS
  1. Favorite toy(s). When I was wee, I was an only child for a couple of years before my sister arrived.  At that time, my favorite toys were a shovel and a patch of dirt in the garden.  I loved nature; I felt connected to it.  Later, Fischer Price Little People came on the scene - the good hard plastic from the early 80s but not the stylized and completely different little toys they have today.  I was big into musicals back then, so I'd arrange my little characters in families and they'd travel around like the VonTrapps.  Later, it was Legos, mostly with my brother.  My sister and I made rites of riding our bicycles and playing "Prince and Princess."  I'd make her be the prince because I'm such a mean older sister, and we'd collect all our dolls together as babies.  We eventually got roller skates, and once I overcame my own fear and wobbling, I handed over the old broom I used to steady myself and showed my sister how it was done.  Later, both siblings and I would play with the neighbors in the sandbox.  My brother would drive cars around while I sifted the sand to make it clean and then constructed mountains with tunnels in the middle.  All three of us saw trees and the woods as our toys.  I couldn't talk about my Toys without talking about my Siblings.

  There was one question at the end about if I was allowed to keep some of my toys.  I have a couple stories about that.  When I was five, my parents tried to convince me to get rid of my baby blanket, telling me I was old enough not to have it anymore.  They didn't pressure me that much, but I had my sensitive moments and threw it away in secret.  When they told me again that it was no big deal, I went to fetch it out of the trash, but it was too late.  Mama made me a new blanket.  Then there was the big-kid toy I had when I was 17.  My grandfather had bought a red Pontiac Fiero in the mid-80s, and he told me that when I turned 16, it would be mine.  Because of the timing of our moves and my long-lived (but now long gone) fear of driving, I didn't drive much until I was 17.  My parents forced me to learn how to drive a stick, despite my nervousness, and before long I was driving to and from work on my Fiero.  It had no Air Conditioning in the San Antonio summer, but it did have a CD player.  When I drove home at 1:00 in the morning from a long shift at the drive through, I'd crank up the Metallica and cruise on home.  When I left for college, my dad sold the "death trap" (yeah, it was old and reeked of my grandfather's chain-smoking, and he had ruined the clutch years ago by deciding to shift without even using the clutch).  I was heartbroken for a while.  I've (mostly) gotten over it.

  2. The Old and the New. What's the difference between the old toys and the new?  Well, the new are much shinier.  My big toys are the laptop and the new bicycle (which I didn't ride today, after taking an hour and a half to get home last night because I was looking at some for sale houses in one neighborhood and turned the wrong way in another).  We're also a fan of the giant television that we use to watch our Netflix.  Not only is there a difference between my old and new toys but between old and new toys in general.  It's easy for us "grown-ups" to bash the industry now.  We see things as having more lights and more parts, with sloppier and cheaper construction and allowing for less imagination.  Do they even sell Lincoln Logs anymore?  Sometimes at home I'll sit and write a letter (not quite a toy) or crochet or play with the cat.  Those are the simplest pleasures.... but I likes me some Super Nintendo, too.
  

  4. Second Childhood. Did I or am I going through a second childhood?  Do I indulge in motorcycles or Barbies or anything?  Well, I don't scrapbook.  I do have most of my stuffed animals in my closet, and everytime we move, I try to pick a few to go to Goodwill or to the garbage bin.  It's more a gradual process.  Like Mike, I "think I'm forever going through a second childhood."  Or, more aptly for me, I think I never left the first one.  My senior year of high school marked a point for a lot of changes for me.  I was physically attractive and actually dated.  I stopped reading books and I stopped paying attention to my siblings.  When I hit college, though, it was back to toys and games... and hard work like studying and having a job.  I learned a lot in college, but the mix of carefree weekends with the friends and juggling that with the necessity to study or write papers was one of the best lessons.  We did puzzles and listened to music on lazy afternoons, did the crossword puzzle in the school paper every Friday at lunch, and explored the city whenever we needed a break.  I don't think I'll need to indulge in the cliches of mid-life crisis.  As I've said a million times this week, I just got a new bike, and I hope that that relatively mild act of (calculated) fancy will keep me young, in more ways than one.

  GAMES
  1. Family game night. I think there were a few months when we tried to do the Family Game Night thing, but really, with us moving all the time, getting together as a family was rarely a problem until we were all in or near high school.  I beat my grandfather at poker when I was three, picked up rummy and Spades and Hearts a few years later, and have loved card games ever since.  I learned Risk when I was little and never really liked it until some friends picked it up recently.  When I beat my dad at checkers when I was six, we switched to chess.  My sister was always better at chess.  My mom knows all the answers to Trivial Pursuit, so it's not often that she finds a willing opponent.  We played Life some evenings together.  I loved the little pink and blue pegs and cramming extra kids between the car seats.  I love Scrabble and Scattergories and all word games (though I have the same problem as my mother when it comes to those).  Then there was Monopoly.  I don't remember a lot of specific instances of us playing.  Even now, though, I can tell you what order the properties go in and how much most of them cost.  Illinois Avenue is one of my favorites because its rent is a nice green $20.  I loved the games with the family, the arguments, the laughter.  Hell, I want to go play spades with my parents and my sister at this very moment. 

  3. The Games People Play. This is about the nasty mind games people can play with others.  I don't know that I've ever intentionally played someone, but by my freshman year of college, I really should have known better.  There was another freshman I met during Orientation, and we became fast friends.  We were both nerds who liked Star Trek and card games and good music.  We started spending an obscene amount of time together.  I told him fairly early on that I had a boyfriend, but I guess my actions spoke differently and a dangerous crush eventually developed.  I didn't want to lose him as a friend, so I may have accidentally strung him along.  Eventually his actions disturbed or upset me so much that we slowed and eventually broke off the friendship.  Last I heard, he's married in his homestate to somebody with my first name.  I miss him.  Then there was the other guy from freshman year.  He was a big bad sophomore in a (the dorkiest) fraternity.  I told him immediately about my boyfriend and believed him when he said he just wanted to be friends.  Most other students went home for the four day weekend of fall break, but I let him cook me dinner and helped him paint the set for a performance he was stage managing.  He told me about his ex-love and I listened.  He's always had issues with women and some people find him creepy, but he's a pretty mild sort of guy.  He didn't really want to be with me, or so he kept saying, so I took him at that.  So now I second-guess myself with guys.  Hasn't really been a problem of late.  I mean, my best guy friends from college are all now happily married to women I've become friends with, and I'm happily married and can playfully flirt with other guy friends.  I'm not playing anybody, but I'm still playing the game, so to speak.  As long as everybody is on the same page and the same level playing ground, it's all good.

  4. Gaming. Mike asks if somebody in my family is a gaming junkie.  I felt he was directing this to me specifically, as I've mentioned that my husband is a World of Warcraft fan and I am sometimes, effectively, a "World of Warcraft Widow."  He goes to work, we watch movies together, go out once in a while, and will start biking together soon, but yeah, the hubby's a junkie.  The scary thing is that I know as much about the Plains of Azaroth as most players.  I can tell you why a warlock is better than a warrior.  I can also tell you about Unreal Tournament and Diablo II and most Final Fantasy games.  With the exception of a 20 minute go at Final Fantasy Tactics, I've never played these games in my life.  I prefer the simpler pleasures of Instant Messaging.  I talk to friends of mine from high school, from college, MY MOM.  It's a crazy world.  I enjoy those activities, but I must temper them with the "real world." 
  

  5. Sports. I played handball in fifth grade on the playground and four square in middle school at sleepovers with the big pack of girlfriends.  My favorite sport to play, though, was soccer.  I was never on a team for school, but when we lived in Mississippi (the second time), my mom signed my siblings and me up for the teams on base.  The only way you're going to get me motivated to RUN is to put a soccer ball out there.  I'll chase it and kick it and deflect others from kicking it at my goalie.  I can make penalty shots and run the length of the field.  My mom told me on one occasion to be even more aggressive with my playing, so I growled.  I didn't really mean to; it just came out.  And I got a yellow card for it.  I felt so ashamed and confused and contrite.  But it was funny.  Our team went from the worst in our age group to losting to the best team in overtime during the last game.  I was one of the fattest kids on the team, but my coach trusted me in almost any position.  I listened well, I was bright, and I was really really into the game. 

  My dad did track when he was younger, my brother did basketball and was really good at soccer in high school, and my sister was bubbly and did a lot with the softball team.  My mom danced ballet for fourteen years and is vicious on the basketball court now (and will break her fingers if whe gets too rowdy).  Now my sister likes to roller blade and bike and play "disc golf" (some mix between Frisbee and golf).  She loves to be outdoor and hanging out with her friends.  My brother is in the Air Force, and while he was always the scrawny type, he's now excelling at the Physical Training, really getting into the discipline, and turning into quite the stud.  Me?  Well, I'm working on it.  I love rollerblading but opted for the bike because of the greater mobility it offers me near where I live.  Any activity with friends is a good time.  It's good to stay active.

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